Rainy Afternoon
by EmAndFandems
Summary: It's raining, and Aziraphale has an umbrella. It would be rude not to share.


Aziraphale certainly doesn't _mean_ to notice Crowley. But it is hard to ignore the bedraggled figure trudging through puddles across the street, especially when Aziraphale is carrying such a lovely umbrella himself. It wouldn't be very angelic to pass by without offering assistance, after all. (Lifesaving professions have a duty of care.) So he crosses the street and clears his throat.

"Hello," he says, and Crowley looks at him, startled.

"What're you doing here?"

Aziraphale shrugs. Voice light against the darkness of the storm around them. "I was just… in the area. And it's, er, it's rather wet out, isn't it?"

"Is it?" Crowley says sardonically, soaked. "Hadn't noticed. Thanks for the tip. Think I'll be on my way now, if you don't mind."

"Wh— I'll go with you, then, and we'll share the umbrella. Where to?"

Crowley frowns and continues walking. (The water's not that deep, until it is.) "Don't need your _help_."

"Don't be absurd," Aziraphale says, and extends the umbrella over Crowley's scowl. "There's plenty of room for two."

There is _not _enough room for two. Umbrellas tend to be made for one person, or person-shaped being. But, well, can Aziraphale really afford a miracle on something so small? How would he explain it on the forms, after all? So if the fit is a bit snug, there is nothing whatsoever he can do about that. If Crowley's arm presses against his, if rain-darkened red hair tickles Aziraphale's ear, if they're close enough to feel the exchange of body heat… There's nothing suspicious about any of it. It's just a series of facts. A result. Effect, not cause. It's all very scientific really. Readily explained.

Crowley sulks, but it's for show; even behind the sunglasses, it's obvious that he's glad to be out of the downpour. He won't say thanks, but Aziraphale didn't expect him to, so that's alright.

For a little while, the only sound is the rain pounding against the umbrella above their heads, lashing against car windshields, landing in puddles. Like returning to like. Yet opposites attract: polarity makes the molecules cling to one another, find common ground, stay together through their travels. Surface tension (it should mean conflict, but it's holding everything together).

Aziraphale doesn't ask why Crowley doesn't miracle himself dry, and Crowley doesn't offer the information, so it remains a mystery. But as long as Crowley is damp, he's leaning into Aziraphale's warmth, so it would be rude to question him and drive him away. He doesn't even ask where they're going. Let Crowley lead, and Aziraphale will follow; he'll be there, offering shelter from the rain, as long as Crowley will let him.

But Aziraphale can't help the small noise he makes as Crowley moves to walk past the bookshop, when their path takes them to the right street. He's got to have seen it, so why—?

Crowley shoves his hands deeper into his pockets and tries to walk faster. Aziraphale stops walking, and Crowley has to stop too or else abandon the safety of the umbrella. "Crowley?"

The only response is a sound resembling no word in any human language.

"Would you be interested," Aziraphale begins, and cuts himself off to start over. "Ahem. Care to come inside?"

And when he still gets no answer: "I'm afraid I really must check on the books. The humidity does dreadful things to them, you know."

For a dreadful, teetering moment he thinks Crowley will say no, that he will turn to continue walking alone in the rain, willing to become drenched again rather than submit to the ordeal of being with Aziraphale. But he rolls his eyes (they are behind tinted glass, so how can Aziraphale see it anyway, how does he know every expression Crowley makes?) and the bookshop doors open.

Aziraphale gives a disapproving _tsk_ and hurries them inside before the floodwaters can follow them in. Crowley spills himself into a seat like he's more rainwater than demon by now, liquid and smooth, filling the sofa like he's fitted to its shape. Fluid.

The umbrella is closed and set aside. Aziraphale bustles past Crowley to flit between the shelves (as though there's anything that needs doing, as though they don't both know the books are fine). After several minutes, Crowley grumbles, "Well, I've got nowhere else to be. Let's get drunk."

Neither of them cares what time it is. Time is a circle, a spiral. A series of cycles (evaporation condensation precipitation, repeat ad infinitum). Eternity has no constraints and hangovers have no danger. Aziraphale fetches the wine.

Wine, like many things, is mostly water. Eight-five percent, or roundabouts (more if it's been diluted, of course), more than the human body's sixty, more even than the Dead Sea with its thirty-three percent salinity. Wine has been used as a source of hydration. That's not what's happening here, though; the water is the least interesting part of bookshop alcohol.

Several glasses (maybe bottles) into their spree, Aziraphale sits forward. "I say. Are you dripping on my lovely dry couch?"

Crowley glances at himself, waterlogged against upholstery. "Mm. Yeah."

"Well—dear boy, _must _you? I'd really, erm, I'd much prefer it if you would refrain. Hold on, I'll…" and Aziraphale rises from his seat to bring out a blanket. He spreads it over Crowley, who's too reclined to resist, and steps back. "There."

"S'not a towel," Crowley notes. "M'still dripping."

"I don't _have_ a towel," Aziraphale says, and giggles. "What would I need one of those for? Take the—take the blanket, my dear, and don't complain or I shall have to cut you off."

"Give me thaaaat," says Crowley, grabbing for the bottle and missing tremendously. He pouts, then thinks better of it and snarls. Aziraphale laughs again. "It's not even a _nice_ blanket."

Aziraphale is offended. "It's a wonderful blanket!"

"Not," Crowley insists. "It's tartan. And it's not even making me warm."

And before he knows it, Aziraphale is settling beside Crowley, lifting the blanket so it will cover both of them (another umbrella). "There. Now you'll be warm."

Crowley is quiet and motionless. A lake on a windless day, not a ripple to be seen (all life lies beneath the surface). Gradually he leans toward Aziraphale until he has his head on a soft shoulder, careful, slow (rivers carve out canyons faster than this). A soft exhale.

Silence is never really silent, stillness never still. The air is buzzing with tiny particles, living or inanimate. Even a breath will disturb the precise microbiome of the room's atmosphere, expelling water vapor and changing barometric pressure infinitesimally. (Everything changes.)

Without deliberately sobering up, Aziraphale becomes conscious of a heightened awareness, a stronger knowledge of the position he's in, an understanding of the ramifications. He moves to stand up. Crowley's hand lands on Aziraphale's knee and holds him in place.

"Don't," he says, gentle, and Aziraphale's heart twists. He knows, of course he does, that Crowley's voice is only soft because of the copious amounts of alcohol flowing through his bloodstream right now (and what's the percentage, how much of his corporation's water is now transformed, is he more wine than demon?), but even knowing this doesn't stop Aziraphale from going weak.

"Okay," and he settles back again before noticing a line of wetness running along Crowley's face; it can't be rainwater anymore, so—? Surely not. "Is…?"

Crowley sniffs (haughty or something else?) and wipes at his face (impossible), turns away (why?) and clears his throat (unless). "Ngk. No."

Aziraphale takes hold of Crowley's jaw, delicately enough that he can pull away if he wants to, and tips Crowley's face toward him. Aziraphale reaches out a thumb and brushes at a spot just beneath the edge of the sunglasses, as cautiously as if his tears were holy (they cannot be). It comes away wet. "Crowley?"

He does not pull away. He trembles against Aziraphale's fingers. Crowley is a being of wine and saltwater, still a wreck from the rain, and he's close enough that his water-vapor breath is disturbing Aziraphale's calm.

"Angel," Crowley says, and it's a whisper, barely loud enough to be heard over the buzzing of the air, the howling of the storm outside, the beating of their hearts. The turn of the world. Again: "Angel."

Cycles and spirals and repetitions, around in a dance as old as the world. (And nothing changes.) "Yes." _Yes, I'm here. Always._ "What is it?"

Crowley removes the sunglasses. (When confronted with a river we build dams and floodgates, to hold back what we can't control.) Wide yellowgold eyes, no longer hiding. Open.

"Oh," says Aziraphale, and then Crowley is kissing him, dragging him in like the tide, exerting his own gravitational pull. _Let me drown in you, let me be submerged in you, let me emerge clean and new and yours entirely._

It's Crowley who breaks the kiss first and the look in his eyes saw the first rainbow, beheld a ram caught in a bush. (Disbelieving hope. An oasis that might be a mirage in the middle of the desert.)

Aziraphale holds him like he might disappear. (There are puddles in the road, but it's just the wiggle of heat, they're not real.) "Don't cry." It's the first thing he can think to say, and he adds, "You're quite wet enough as it is."

Crowley laughs like it might break him to keep it in, like it will fill his lungs and he'll choke on suppressed joy, if that's what this is (it's possible to drown in shallow water). "Okay," he agrees, "alright."

"Promise?" Aziraphale traces a finger along a sharp cheekbone, the memory of salt clinging to the pad of it, a distant wetness. (They say we all came from the sea.)

"Promise," says Crowley, voice faint, "No crying, if you'll kiss me again."

Before the sentence is over Aziraphale is pressing soft lips to dry ones, tasting of the wine and the rain and the wanting, grapes and time plus water and time plus nothing but time. Time is a circle being pushed shut, compressed, packed tighter. A single drop of rain holds within it tiny life and the power to make more, forever, endlessly repeating. Thousands of years pressed into a single moment.

They met moments before the first rain. They have lived through every storm together. They will spend this one in each other's arms.  
_**A/N: Title from Queen's "Stone Cold Crazy." PLEASE leave a comment!**_


End file.
